Toward Religious Neutrality in the Public School Curriculum

Abstract

Public school curriculum choices have been disputed since the inception of compulsory education. The growth of Catholic schools in the nineteenth century was a response to concerns over the Protestant ideology prevalent in the public school curriculum.' During the 1960's, various minority groups recognized and reacted to racial and ethnic bias in school textbooks.2 In more recent years, interest groups from both the Right and the Left have attempted to remove objectionable textbooks from the classroom.3 The latest members of this long line of concerned parents have been conservative Christian groups. In a series of recent lawsuits, these groups have questioned whether the curriculum used in the public schools fairly portrays religion. Although some have discounted these challenges as censorship or efforts to impose a fundamentalist ideology,4 contemporary curriculum attacks are quite similar, at least in form, to the complaints raised by prior groups.5 Yet since these recent charges have been directed specifically at the treatment of religion, they also implicate the religion clauses of the First Amendment.6